One Foot in Front of the Other
by Miss Anonymous hp
Summary: After the group is forced to head west to escape the Governor and his men, Daryl is separated from the rest and stranded in the desert. Now, he must fight to survive and make his way back to his family, and maybe get some help from a few friends along the way. Daryl-centric with everybody else having a role to play. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter One

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the Walking Dead. But I would sure to love to write for them.

**Summary**: After the group is forced to head west to escape the Governor and his men, Daryl is separated from the rest and stranded in the desert. Now, he must fight to survive and make his way back to his family, and maybe get some help from a few friends along the way. Daryl-centric with everybody else having a role to play.

**Author's Note**: This is my first Walking Dead fanfiction. If this one does good, maybe I'll see about writing some others! This story is already complete, so all you need to do is kick your feet up and wait for the updates to come rolling on in. Once a day updates! This story is Daryl-centric, but it will focus heavily on his relationship with the rest of the group. There will be some mentions of Caryl, though they may be light enough for those of you who are not fans to gloss over it. There will also be plenty of Rick/Daryl bromance, too. Either way, I hope you...

Enjoy!

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**One Foot in Front of the Other**

**Chapter One**

For a moment, he almost wanted to laugh. Staring down the barrel of a silver-plated revolver gave him almost fond flashbacks to some of his less than finer moments with Rick. But he realized that laughing right now would probably not go over well with the man holding the gun. The humor, Daryl supposed, would probably be lost on him.

The difference this time, of course, was that the gun currently pointed at him had already been fired. Beside him, Tyreese laid on the ground, clutching at his chest for all the good it was doing, as he panted, open-mouthed. His dark brown eyes were staring up at Daryl as if he expected him to be able to do something, to somehow save him, call in the cavalry. Daryl didn't have the heart to tell him that it wouldn't happen. Blood splattered up around his lips as Tyreese struggled for breath, and his lips turned crimson.

"Just so you know I'm serious," Martinez said with a smirk on his face. His eyes were wide and tad on the crazy side, looking a bit more animalistic than human at the moment, the signs of a man who hadn't seen civilization for far too long. Daryl knew that was not exactly a good sign. "Boy, you are fucked now, aren't you? I shot him. What's to stop me from shooting you too since you seem so goddamn intent on keeping that mouth of yours shut?"

Daryl met his stare without blinking. "Nothing," he answered, almost bored. He felt tired all of a sudden. Sleepy. How weird. It must have been the Arizona sun. Or were they still in Texas? Hell, he didn't even know anymore.

"Got that right." The smirk turned into a wide, manic grin. "But I don't think I'm gonna. Know what I'm gonna do instead?"

He really didn't want to know, but he knew he was about to find out. "What?"

The gun came down to rest against Daryl's cheek, only a little hotter than the air around them. He had a sudden urge to reach up and twist that damn thing out of his hand before he even knew what hit him, but Daryl was still fully aware of Shumpert standing several paces behind him. He couldn't see him, but he was pretty damn sure – at least from the shadow that he was casting across the ground – that he still had _his fucking crossbow_ pointed at the back of his head. Douchebag. And Christ, it was so hot. It was hotter than it was yesterday, and that was saying something. Daryl closed his eyes.

"Think I'm just gonna leave you here," Martinez whispered as he ran the tip of the barrel over Daryl's cheekbone and prodded at his closed eyelids. "How long you think you're gonna last? A day or two?" When Daryl didn't reply, he nudged at his eye harder. Daryl gritted his teeth but refused to react. "What do ya say, amigo? How long?"

Daryl was too proud to even think of responding. He had half a mind to spit in his face. So, he did. He got pistol whipped across the face for his effort, sending him from his knees that he had been forced on to all fours. His right hand landed in the pool of blood forming around Tyreese's body. Daryl tasted iron on his lips. It was still worth it. And it wasn't nearly as much blood as was in Tyreese's mouth at the moment. Good God, the guy was going to drown in his blood long before he bled out.

"Leave him some water," Tyreese managed to croak out. "Please."

Daryl resisted the urge to flinch at the singular _him_.

"Now, why would I wanna do anything like that? Spoils all the fun."

It was not a relief to know that Martinez was not going to kill him outright. The desert was going to do that for him. No water equaled death and not a very pleasant one. Not fast enough, not nearly. Throw him in the middle of a goddamn wilderness, the fucking Amazon rainforest if you gotta, but this? This was so far out of Daryl's comfort zone that he realized just being fucking zen about the whole entire thing wasn't going to suddenly make it less of a grave. Daryl fought down the sudden swell of despair that started to gather in his chest and gave a shake of his head.

"It ain't enough to walk out of here, and ya know it. What's the fuckin' difference?" he growled. It was the closest he would ever get to begging, but that's what he was pretty much doing.

Martinez grinned again, baring yellowed teeth. His breath was almost worse than any goddamn walker he'd ever come across, and if he hadn't already felt sick at his current situation, that sure as hell did the trick. "The difference is that torture's fun, sunshine," he hissed, mocking the redneck with great pleasure. "You and the pathetic traitor, here. Lost in the desert. That's just all kinds of fun waiting to happen. Too bad we can't stick around and watch what happens."

"Bastard," Daryl spat out, pointlessly.

Martinez laughed in response as the gun finally retreated back into the waistband of his dirty jeans.

"You're gonna fuckin' regret this," Daryl swore. He licked his lips and his stomach tightened with worry that he refused to show at how damn dry they already were, the dehydration cracks already starting to form. "I will make sure you fuckin' do. You can count on it."

Something like a real smile made its way onto Martinez's face, making him look oddly sympathetic. "Hombre, you ain't gonna be doin' much of anything before the vultures will start picking out your eyes and walkers start eating your remains," he said in an absurdly gentle voice. "You'll figure that out pretty quick out here. Everything looks the same, no matter which way you turn. You're in my territory now, amigo. Might live longer if you stay put, but if you don't move, you won't find your way back to your group. Kinda damned if you do, damned if you don't, huh?"

Daryl didn't say anything to that. There wasn't any need.

He watched as Shumpert came around, keeping his own damn crossbow trained on him, and Martinez slung his gear into the back of the truck. Daryl lived to survive; he was always fucking prepared. If he could keep the vehicle, he could get Tyreese out, maybe get him back to Hershel. Even if the truck didn't run, he'd been left to nurse his own damn wounds enough to be able to at least muster some sort of shitty first aid, long as he had his damn gear.

But Martinez was taking it all. Food. Water. The tarp they had grabbed, figuring they could use it as a tent in a worst-case scenario. Even the damn precious jars of baby food that had been for Judith. It was all leaving.

Tyreese made a gurgling sound, and Daryl looked down to see blood trickling from the corner of the larger man's mouth. He was dying already.

Daryl tried not to think how lucky Tyreese was.

"So, I'd say see you around, but… I won't. Say hello to your brother for me." Martinez climbed in behind the wheel of the truck while Shumpert took the driver seat of the beat-up jeep they had originally pulled up in. He gave Daryl a cheery wave. "If I were you, I'd find me some shelter. Gonna be a scorcher today, I guarantee it." He beamed at him. "You two take care now. Thanks for the wheels."

"Fuck you!" Daryl spat out harshly, but the doors were already shut with the wheels scratching in the sandy gravel. The two-car caravan turned and headed out the way Daryl and Tyreese came, barely daybreak then, following a nonexistent road that had only been created out of a necessity to avoid a hoard of walkers.

He watched Martinez and Shumpert drive away, the vehicles bouncing over the terrain. Daryl estimated that it was forty miles that direction to the nearest town. Twenty before they would hit pavement. Rick and the rest of the group were even further than both of those combined. Behind him was nothing but craggy mountains, no telling on how far they actually were. Daryl didn't know this terrain. He had no damn clue where anything else other than what they had passed coming out was. He could have picked any other direction and walked with the hope of finding something closer, or he could die of thirst before he even saw a hillside. Either way, the trip would kill him long before he had a chance to find out.

"Go," Tyreese said in his gurgling voice. "Get going. Gotta – find some sh-shade."

Daryl wiped his bloody palm on his pants leg before he looked down at him again. "You're comin' with me."

Tyreese reached up to grip the front of his leather vest tightly in his fist. "No." A bubble of blood formed between his lips before it popped, spraying find droplets of red over his lips. "I'm not."

"Yeah, you are," Daryl snapped. He ignored the irony of how they'd been just about to rip each other's heads off right before they got fucking rammed off the road and now he was fighting to save the guy's life. "C'mon. It ain't that fuckin' far."

"Remember – Remember that wash we went past? Back 'bout ten miles?" Another bubble and this time Tyreese coughed. The flow of blood strengthened, dribbling all over his chin. His dark eyes fixed an unbearable energy on Daryl's face, and his hold on his vest tightened. Daryl gave a stiff nod. "Dried up now… but… wasn't always… couldn't have been…" He made a cawing sound that took Daryl a moment to realize was a laugh. "Jesus, my chest hurts."

"Shut the hell up, man," Daryl urged helplessly. "Good Lord."

"No. You go back there. Tonight, when it's – cooler. Choose a direction and follow it… People always setting up stupid ass communities along those rivers, no matter how tiny they are. You'll find houses. Maybe a well. You'll have – water."

He was only half listening. His eyes were scanning the area for other options, some way to make a makeshift stretcher or some other shit like that. He chewed on his ever gnawed on thumbnail, trying to come up with something. No fucking trees. Useless desert vegetation, cactus, a little mesquite. Not strong enough. Not nearly.

The vice-like grip on Daryl's vest was surprisingly strong. "You gotta get out of the sun," he said, his voice clear of the gurgling for that moment. "It'll – be hot as hell again today. Find someplace. Shade. Watch for walkers."

Daryl clenched his jaw tightly. "I ain't leavin' you to turn into one of those things," he whispered harshly. His throat ached, and it was not just from thirst.

"Ain't nothing you can do about it now. They took all our weapons." Tyreese's face twisted with agony, and he turned his head away. "Go, for fuck's sake! Remember the wash."

Daryl swallowed, his throat tight against the movement. "I'll come back for ya. I will. I won't leave ya like one of 'em."

"Good," Tyreese whispered in his bubbling voice. He finally released Daryl's vest so that he could claw at the neck of his shirt. He pulled out a medallion and broke the gold chain around his neck with a fast yank. "Give this to Sasha."

Daryl took the pendant, a St Christopher's medallion. He tucked it carefully in his pocket, shoving it far down so that it wouldn't slip free if he had to climb. "I will," he promised. "Don't ya worry."

Tyreese didn't say anything else. He was alive when Daryl finally stood, but his breathing was labored now, deep and faster and hesitating every third breath or so. It was loud and strenuous, the sound of dying. There wasn't anything anyone could do at this point. If they magically ended up in an operating ER right this second, Tyreese would still die. There was too much damage.

Daryl gave the area one last desperate look, hoping to find something that would help him put Tyreese out of his misery before he turned, but found nothing. He started off down the already fading path that the vehicles left behind. The thread of dust from the retreating caravan was long gone. It was quiet; even the birds were silent. Only the hiss of the ever-present wind, pushing along dust, whispering through the mesquite dared to utter a sound.

Behind him, the gasping breaths stopped. Daryl didn't turn to look back.

x X x

The wind was taking away the dirt tracks of the truck and jeep every second. Daryl knew that they had veered off course and headed south, southwest. He just had to make it back to the pavement. Or was it the wash? One of those. The sun behind him informed him that it wasn't even noon yet. It was still morning, still vaguely early, but the sun was beating down on him like fists already. There was no telling how hot it was. At least a hundred. Maybe higher.

"You'd better start thinking about shade," Tyreese said suddenly. "Like I said."

The voice was so clear that Daryl actually spun around, expecting to see him standing there with a great red blotch across his chest, blood on his lips, as he dispensed calm, sage-like advice as if he weren't at the very end of dying. Or maybe he'd expected to see walker-Tyreese, standing there with his arms outstretched, ready to bite into his shoulder. Though walkers didn't talk, but that fact was kind of lost on Daryl at the moment.

But he wasn't there in any form. No Tyreese. No walker. No Martinez and Shumpert with their truck and their things. Hell, they pretty much had Daryl's _life_ in their grimy hands. No one. Just the wind, and the dust. Not even a goddamned jackrabbit was in sight.

Daryl wiped the sweat from his forehead and paused as a sudden thought hit him. _How long until that stops?_ He knew that once you stopped sweating, you weren't really doing so well. So far, so good, but he was already so thirsty that he'd drink goddamn radiator water if he could get his hands on it. How far was it until he'd drink worse? He grew up on _worse_, but there had to be a point that even he would usually stop at, right? Walker soup. Yeah, that was pretty bad. Ten miles? Twenty? A few more hours? Tomorrow?

Shade. That was important. Standing out here in the fucking blazing sun wouldn't do anyone any goddamn favors, least of all him. He shaded his eyes as he scanned the horizon, turning to look south again. There was not a whole lot ahead. No trees, Not even a few puny mesquites back the mile or two he had already come. It was a valley; mountains were around, but definitely more than a day's walk away.

Well, he'd felt thirsty before. Majorly thirsty. He had gotten lost in the woods for nine-fucking-days before, hadn't seen a single hide nor hair of a stream or river for any of that. It hadn't rained a drop either. He'd been forced to lick dew off of the leaves and absorb whatever moisture he could from the sparse berries he'd been able to find. Nine-fucking-days. It sucked, sure, but it was doable. This would be, too. Had to be.

Except the Georgia Mountains weren't exactly a Midwestern desert. It had been dry, yes, but it hadn't even been summer then either. Closer to winter, actually. Mid-October or so. Some kids had been picking out their Halloween costume, and he'd gotten himself fucking lost. He had sweated like a son of a bitch then, too, but it hadn't really gotten to him.

This was like hiking over a well-heated cast-iron skillet. And this wasn't even the bad part of the day. This was the good part.

He licked his lips and glanced at his burnt forearms. Well, fuck. Good old Martinez took the long-sleeved shirt he'd had in the back, too, didn't he? So, if he got out of this alive, he was gonna end up kicking the bucket thanks to skin cancer down the line. Wonderful. Small potatoes, really.

He drew in a deep breath and tried not to hear Tyreese's mournful dead voice. "Gonna get a lot worse than this, Daryl. You ready for that? Really?"

Come to think of it, Tyreese was starting to sound a lot like Rick. And Rick had never really done wrong by him. He might still be shit at tracking, but the man knew a thing or two about surviving. He'd woken from a goddamn coma and managed to survive this shit, after all. His words had some weight.

Shelter. That was what he needed. And tonight, when it cooled off, if he hadn't already been found by the search party that Rick would send out for him, he'd hit the road again.

x X x

"When I get back," Daryl whispered, blinking the sweat out of his eyes, "I'm gonna start smokin' again." He drew in a quick breath and ignored the ache of his tired hands. "That way – I'm always gonna have – a lighter… in my goddamn – _pocket!_"

It had taken for-fucking-ever to find flint around here. And dragging together enough shit to light on fire had put him well into the afternoon.

"Cigarette – would just make me – thirstier, right?" The sparks were so goddamn small, and it was so windy. "Just CATCH!" he roared suddenly, but it didn't. He barely stopped himself before he flung the stupid useless rocks as far away from himself as he could get them in his frustration.

He sat back on his heels and closed his eyes briefly. First order of business: shelter. He had sort of got that part done. It was just a rock, a shallow overhang, but it was out of direct sunlight. And now, with noon having come and gone, shade was everything. He couldn't believe how fucking hot it was out here.

Second order of business: light a fire.

In any other place, that would have been a death sentence. Hell, it might still be a death sentence, but he wasn't worried about attracting every goddamn walker in the area. Most of them were probably sun bait by now, mummified versions of their former selves. He might be lighting a signal for the Governor and his men too, but he didn't mind that so much either. Maybe they'd take pity on his sorry ass and put a bullet through his head. That would at least be merciful.

The fire was for warmth, which was a fucking joke. Ha. Like he would ever want to be warm again after this shit. But it was also to create smoke and light for Rick. Carol. Michonne. Somebody would come looking. Rick was too good of a man to leave them out here to die. Both of them. Him and Tyreese. Tyreese, who was probably the reason he saw buzzards circling back the way he had come from. Bodies go fucking fast in heat. Those chocolate brown eyes were probably gone by now. Snap, snap, yummy.

Daryl wondered if walkers went blind. Probably a fucking hilarious sight. Watching the damn thing run into a wall over and over and over again…

"The fire, Daryl," Rick said gently. Calmly. "Start the fire."

Good Lord, the man's voice was like water. Cold, clean water. Daryl swallowed back acid and nodded. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay, man. Don't get your panties in a fuckin' twist. I'm gettin' to it. Don't happen to have a match on ya, d'ya? No? Figures."

He picked up the flint again.

x X x

When he woke up, he thought the fire had gotten out of control. It was so hot; how'd it get so close? He was careful, wasn't he?

He sat up and stared at the flames, still going, but not out of control. No, just a pretty decent blaze, whipped a little by the wind. It was just so hot. It had to be nearly the evening hours but not enough for the sun to start going down, and it was hotter than it was yesterday.

Yesterday, one of the elderly people had died from heat stroke. Those old people. They were weak as fuck. He had ended up having to drive his hunting knife straight through the poor lady's skull to make sure she didn't turn. Wait, was that yesterday? Or the day before? Fuck, he couldn't remember now. Daryl wondered if Rick was having to drive his machete through an old man's skull right now. Or maybe Glenn. Poor Glenn.

Jesus, he was so thirsty. Hungry, too, but he was so thirsty. His mouth tasted foul, and he lips were cracked worse now, bad enough to hurt. His heart was pattering along inside his chest, far faster than his normal resting pulse.

He shrunk back against the rock. It was hot, too, but he wanted to get as far away as he could from that crucifying sunshine. Like a vampire, it was gonna burn him up. Beth and her goddamn vampires. She had come across some books in one of the houses they stayed in, and now she could not shut up about some faggot named Edward. Edward was _dead_, he had pointed out, and what was dead should stay dead. But then she had looked like she was about to cry, so he had taken it back. What a fucking pussy.

"Sleep," Carol said gently as she patted the sandy ground. "Go to sleep, Daryl. You'll wake up when it gets dark. Then you can find those houses Tyreese was talking about. There'll be water there. A well. We'll find you."

Daryl smiled and slumped over. The ground wasn't so bad. Kind of soft, actually, and he'd slept on worse. It was almost possible to pretend that Carol's cool hand touched his forehead right before he closed his eyes.

x X x

Not much happened while Daryl slept. The vultures had been busy, that much was true. Between the time Tyreese died and when he woke up – and he did wake up – the vultures made pretty damn sure that he didn't really very much look like Tyreese anymore. That didn't stop him from being able to lunge at those same vultures and eat them raw as the craving of flesh overtook his brain, but it did make for a very grisly looking discovery just waiting to be made. And made it was.

But not before Daryl's prediction was right and another old geezer bit the dust, but it was cute little Beth with her vampire-obsession that dealt with it. Because all of the stronger ones were gone. After spotting the Governor just two miles from their location, Rick and the group realized that they needed to move, but they couldn't leave without Daryl and Tyreese. No fucking way. So, they'd gone out looking for them. It was Sasha who spotted Tyreese, half his face gone and reaching for her, but she froze, unable to pull the trigger. Luckily, little Carl was there to watch her back. He didn't even blink as he blew Tyreese's brains out the back of his head.

It took another twenty minutes before they found where he had originally died. One pool of blood. Not two. Daryl could be out there, but out there wasn't exactly a very nice thought. Not with the sun baring down on them and taking lives because it was so damn _hot_. Even so, Daryl was a fighter, a survivor, and Rick decided that they had to search for him, no matter how useless it could be. Everybody was reminded of Sophia, but nobody had the guts to mention it. Not with Carol there. Carol, who had already lost her little girl and looked sick at the thought of losing Daryl too.

But other than the busy buzzards, waking walker, the search team that was nowhere near Daryl's current location, and a few sporadic insects… there was not a whole lot going on right where Daryl was except the wind. Daryl had walked nearly five miles before his nap. Not that far, but like when he had been seven and hadn't known where the hell he was going, it was far enough to be perfectly lost. Tyreese's wash was closer to thirty miles away than ten, and it was east of where Daryl currently laid, sleeping restlessly with his face pushed against his arm. In his current direction, he would reach China before he would find the wash or any of the old, abandoned houses that were built along it.

On his current heading, he would reach Death Valley a long time before China.


	2. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer**: I do not own The Walking Dead. I just simply absolutely love it.

**Author's Note**: This story has graphic imagery, lots of bad language, violence, and lots of angst. I'm sure you guys figured this all out from Chapter One, but I figured I would reiterate it for the rest of the crowd who may have thought it was over with. The truth is, it's not. Daryl's journey has only just begun. This won't be the longest fic in the history of TWD fics, so don't worry, you won't have to wait too long to see how everything turns out. And please, do review! But, more importantly...

Enjoy!

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**Chapter Two**

About three seconds after Daryl woke up the next time, he realized that he had never felt thirsty before in his life. He thought he knew what it felt like, but he never had a fucking clue.

This, no. This was thirsty.

He moaned a little, but all that emerged between his cracked lips was a little hiss of air. His head was pounding, and he had no sense of taste at all. His tongue felt like a foreign object in his mouth, dry and alien, like he should spit it out. As if he had any spit to start with. There was nothing there.

It was dark, and his fire was still going. That was good, right? Even the wind had died down a little, although fitful little spasms of breeze would kick up occasionally.

Daryl pushed himself to his feet and swayed back against the rock he had been hiding under while he fought down the surge of dizziness. Got up too damn fast, that was all. Got a head rush. Don't be such a wuss, Dixon. Don't you fucking fall over now.

Jesus Christ, it was still hot. How could that be? It would have to cool off at some point, right? His eyes searched the sky and found the northern star, but his head hurt too damn much to figure out the time. Somewhere before midnight, that was as far as he could get. Daytime heat probably hadn't had time to dissipate yet, not completely. At least the sun wasn't beating down on his head.

It was time to get moving. He had to make it to that wash tonight. He had to.

"When you get back, we'll open that bottle of whisky we found and were saving for me and Maggie's wedding." Glenn grinned at him, teeth glinting in the firelight. "Sound good?"

"Yeah, sounds real good," Daryl said, although it came out as mostly air. "Gonna hold ya to that."

"Come on. Let's get outta here."

Glenn walked with him for a while. There was moonlight, and it brightened the area enough so that Daryl didn't trip too often. His jeans were braceleted around his ankles with stickers after a while, thanks to the plants he lumbered through, but he could see to avoid the big obstacles. The idea of falling, maybe breaking something, sent a spike of fear down his spine. He had enough damn trouble already; a broken ankle would mean death.

"I don't wanna die," he whispered the admission. "I ain't ready to die. Not yet."

At his side, Glenn sighed. "You're not gonna die," he said, hands in his pockets. "Trust me."

"Are ya'll lookin' for me?"

"'Course we are."

"Then why the hell haven't ya found me yet?"

Glenn wavered, shivering like a mirage. Daryl reached out, and his fingers wafted through Glenn's arm, touching nothing at all. He was not there. He wasn't ever there.

"Ya fuckin' bitch!" Daryl rasped. He coughed against the dryness in his throat. "Don't leave me here."

There was no reply. There never was one. He was hallucinating, seeing shit.

The moon hung motionless and fat in the east. He took a moment to try to get his bearings again before he trudged forward.

x X x

How many miles had it been? The moon was hanging overhead, giving off a decent amount of light, but he couldn't get his eyes to cooperate as he tried to figure out the sky clock. Must be after two. Must be. It felt like he had been walking for days. Well, nights.

If he were back in Georgian terrain, he would have been able to just track the damn tire tracks those two fuckers had left behind, but the wind had already eaten up that trail, leaving nothing but unsettled sand. Everywhere. As far as the eye could see. And if he were back there, he would have been able to find himself a river. You couldn't walk five miles without finding some sort of creek bed. He didn't like this feeling, this feeling of being fucking _lost_. He didn't get lost, but he was now. Because he was pretty damn sure that he should have seen the wash by now, the one Tyreese had spotted on the way out here. East at the wash. Only a couple miles. There would be a well, water, shelter. Some place to hole up until Rick found his sorry ass. But water was the thing that sounded really good right about now. Good, like oxygen. Good, like not dying.

A coyote cried out off to his right. Daryl flinched, but it was miles away. And there was another one, answering, and maybe two more. Like a goddamn coyote choir. Pretty dissonant, but in a weird way, it made him feel a little less lonely. There _were_ living things out there. It was not as deserted as it felt.

A few minutes later, he tripped on a stone and fell flat on his belly. It knocked the air clean out of him, and he lied there, wheezing, his breath pushing up a little puff of dirt.

"Get your lazy ass up, you fuckin' faggot."

Daryl jerked, rolling onto his side, tense all over. He knew that voice. Oh, yeah, that was a real familiar tone.

Will Dixon loomed over him. His wife beater had beer stains all over it with his beer belly hanging out, as if he was damn proud of that thing. A Dale Earnhardt ball cap sat on his head, doing a terrible job of hiding the balding across his scalp. "Still a pussy," he spat out at him before laughing as if he'd said something real funny. "You'll always be pathetic and worthless. Never gonna amount to shit."

Daryl's face was hot with humiliation. His father was a prick. When he wasn't beating his ass, he never hesitated in telling him what a fucking low-life he was. But in the end, who the hell had been keeping them from being out on the street ever since he had been 15? Sure as hell wasn't Will-fucking-Dixon. The man hadn't had a job since the damn 80's. Daryl had been the one to improvise, learn to hunt, and make sure they had food on the damn table. He'd been the one to drop out of school at 13 so that he could focus on working instead. Will loomed over him while Daryl struggled to his feet and wiped a hand down his face.

"Never have, never will," Dixon announced, with a scornful up-and-down look. "Just another good for nothin', always causin' shit, and bringin' more shit that we don't need to our family. You need to nut up, Daryl. Stop bein' such a damn pussy!"

"Fuck you." Except all that came out was, "fuh-yuh."

Will laughed at his pathetic attempt to stand up for himself even as Daryl hobbled away. It sounded a little like the coyotes, that same barking high giggle. Or maybe more like a hyena. God, he fucking hated that man. _I'm glad you're dead_, he thought scathingly. _I'm fuckin' glad the walkers tore you open like a goddamn Christmas present, and I'm so damn glad I was there to see it, motherfucker_.

The coyotes sang into the night, and Daryl walked on.

x X x

There was no wash. He was pretty sure of that now. And that meant something, something important. He had to figure out what that was. Soon.

And he had to piss. How crazy was that? His mouth was so dry that he couldn't even feel his tongue anymore, and his bladder was complaining like a loud motherfucker. He had to take a leak, let _water_ out. That was jacked up.

He faced southwest and thought about his father back with the coyotes. He was glad that the jackass wasn't here to make fun of the size of Daryl's dick or something. Not that he had anything to be ashamed, thanks for asking, but his father was always doing whatever he could to make him feel small and shitty about something. What better target than the package?

It hurt to piss. It was like his body changed its mind at the last moment and decided it wanted to keep the fluid instead. He made a face and listened to the slow droplets as they hit the hard-packed ground. Jesus fucking Christ, he was so thirsty. Water was like a goddamn wet dream now, literally. He dreamed about it, fantasized about it. All different kinds of water. A sweaty 20-ounce bottle, fresh from a somehow working fridge. A lake, shimmering in the distance. Rain, leaving behind a rainbow in its spray. Waterfalls, a pier on a Georgian Lake. He even missed the goddamn dew drops he had licked off the leaves as a kid.

He clumsily shook off and got a drop of urine on his hand. He stared at it, considering it for a moment, before he rubbed it across his tongue. Holy Hell – it was salty, disgusting.

"Don't do that, Daryl," Rick's soft voice told him. He was pissing, too, and getting a pretty good arc while he was at it. Gonna write your name there, Rick? "Don't stoop that low. Not until you absolutely have to."

"It's sterile," Daryl pointed out, even as he wasn't sure if he actually could even if he wanted to. "It might not be so bad."

It was too late anyway. Daryl's bladder was empty, although it pulsed hotly in the wake of elimination as though pissed at him for pissing. Ironic. He zipped his jeans back up and rubbed his cold hands together.

At his side, Rick was ready, too. "Well, let's go."

"I think I'm goin' the wrong way."

Rick pursed his lips and gazed southeast. "That's not like you, Daryl. Weren't you paying attention?"

"'Course I was, man… but I dunno this shit… I could be in the middle of Mexico, and I ain't got a clue."

"Where you are isn't important. Getting back to us is."

Daryl shook his head slowly. "I think I need to sit down for a sec'… get my bearin's…"

Rick's gaze was level and kind. "Do you really think that's a good idea?" he asked softly.

"Just for a minute."

"Okay."

Daryl slowly sank to the ground, his eyes shut as he held his pounding head. "If I pass out, you'll wake me up?"

"Of course."

"An hour… tops. Okay? Gotta keep movin'…"

Rick turned an eye onto the stars as if searching out the time before he gave a curt nod. "I'll make sure."

Daryl nodded and rubbed his hot arms with his cold hands as he laidback. Just for a minute. Only for a minute.

x X x

The real Rick Grimes was not that far away. If Daryl knew how close, he would be surprised and probably a little pissed off. About twenty miles as the crow flies. Or the buzzard, if you will.

Of course, under the circumstances, Rick might as well have been prospecting on Mars for all the good he could do. He stared down into the bottle of water they had managed to salvage from some house's attic of emergency supplies and thought about Daryl out there someplace. They hadn't come across the Governor ever since he had first been sighted earlier that day, and that worried the fuck out of him. For all he knew, Daryl was with the sick fuck right now, but his gut told him otherwise. He was out there, somewhere, but that didn't make him feel any better.

It was about an hour until sunrise. Not too late. It wasn't too late yet.

Carol stood next to him, her posture strong but her face crumbled in uncontrollable worry. Her eyes were watery with tears that she refused to let fall. She would not mourn for someone that wasn't dead. Like hell, she would. "It's been nearly 24 hours, Rick. Do you really think it's possible that… he's okay?"

Rick's eyes narrowed in on the horizon, but he didn't turn to look at her. He was waiting for the sun to come up and give them some light. Hopefully they would be able to find him before it got too hot. "Okay? No. But alive? Yes."

"He couldn't have gotten far," Carol muttered. A hand found her mouth, betraying her worry. "And we know which direction he probably headed… We'll find him." She took in a sharp intake of breath. "He should have just stayed put."

That made Rick look at her. "Daryl had no idea that we would… or could come after him," he said. "He had no choice but to try to make it back on his own."

"But that's the cardinal rule! Stay where you are and wait to be found," Carol protested, though she knew it was useless. Found by who? Search and Rescue? Yeah, that was a laugh. She let out a sigh. "I just hope he went the right way."

"If he didn't –" Rick halted his words as he considered what to say. "If he didn't, we're looking at a much tougher search."

Carol's eyes shined a little brighter, but she didn't say anything. She just nodded.

Rick drank his water and resumed gazing east, waiting for the sun to rise.


	3. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the Walking Dead. It is just my favorite show on television right now, so of course I have to write about it.

**Author's Note**: Because I got this question, I figured I'd answer it... Other than Tyreese who you all saw/read him die in the first chapter, everybody that was alive in the season 3 finale is alive in this story. Don't worry; there aren't any other secret deaths just waiting to be discovered. If anybody else dies in this story (I won't say one way or another, mwahahah), you will see it happen. I actually really like how one particular scene in this chapter came out, and I hope you all like it, too.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Three**

When Daryl next woke up, it was light, and a scorpion was standing about an inch from his face.

He stared at it. This close, it looked alien, gigantic, like something out of some B-rated horror movie that Glenn would have gotten a kick out of before the world went to shit. It edged closer, and he edged back. He flicked his fingers at it, and it retreated.

His headache was worse. So much worse. He squinted in the harsh sunshine and shaded his eyes. The sun actually felt good. He was cold. His hand felt frozen, like it didn't even belong to him. It was someone else's hand, stapled onto his arm during the night.

He watched the scorpion shamble away. For a moment, he wondered what the scorpion tasted like. Maybe they were wet on the inside. Was the whole thing poisonous or just the stinger part? Martinez probably knew. Maybe the fucker would come back just long enough to give him that piece of information.

"Hey, amigo, feel free to bite the heads off of scorpions while you're out here! It won't kill you… yet." But unlike before, the voice was most definitely not there. No confusion this time. It was just in his head in a desperate attempt to amuse himself from this fucked up situation.

Rick was gone. There was no one around. The coyotes were silent. Just the wind brushing against his face was present, like greedy little fingers as they explored him.

"You're ours now, honey," it was saying with every wisp. "We'll keep touching you until you fall over, and you can't get up anymore. We'll hold you and rock you and cradle you against the sand, and suck the last drop out of you, scour the skin from your bones, and leave your skeleton like a warning in a white ribcage and long white bones. You can't fool Mother Nature. You dumb shit."

Actually, Mother Nature sounded a lot like his father again. Not feeling up to another visit from that bastard, he brushed the thought aside.

A buzzard landed about ten feet away, flapping its wings expectantly.

Daryl recoiled, uttering a harsh bark of wordless disgust. He couldn't get the words from his parched throat, but the message was all too clear. _Oh, hell no, you do not get me yet, ya fuckin' carrion sack of garbage. Feasted on Tyreese's remains but ain't got your fill so ya come for me? FUCK you, no _fuckin' _way._

Panting, he took off one of his boots and flung it at the staring bird. The shot went way wild, soaring at least three feet to the left of his target, but it did the trick. The buzzard cawed and flapped its huge wings, taking off into the sky. Daryl watched, breath hitching in his chest, while it rose higher and higher. It started to circle overhead, refusing to leave behind its next meal.

"Not dead yet," Daryl croaked out. "Not yet, sonuvabitch."

After a minute longer, he finally sat up. It was a stupid idea, throwing his shoe like that, but he didn't regret it. He stood and immediately hunched over as waves of dizziness washed over him. This was way worse than the day Merle got out of jail back in '06, and he'd forced him to get shitfaced drunk with him that night. He still wasn't sure what the hell happened most of that night, just that he somehow ended up waking up in the bed of his truck. He was dizzy as hell then, too, but Jesus, nowhere near like right now. His stomach turned over unsteadily.

When the landscape steadied a little, he stumbled over to find his boot. He sat on a rock while he put it on. His toes were blue with his foot amazingly cold. He couldn't figure that part out. It was already warm and quickly getting a lot warmer. Why were his feet and hands cold? He tied the boot awkwardly and pushed himself off the rock.

x X x

Daryl had just calculated the time based on the sun's height from the horizon – approximate 9 o'clock – when he saw a glint just to his right. He looked over at Beth who lifted her chin, curious.

"What do you think it is?" she asked.

He shook his head.

At her side, Maggie gave a shrug. "Check it out, Daryl. It could be important."

The glint was the sun reflecting off of a plastic bottle. His heart made a tiny painful lurch in his chest upon seeing it. Bottles held water. Fluid. He knew this. He all but ran over, fighting back the cries of pain at how much it hurt to move like that, with purpose, with speed. His body ached all over. He bent down to pick it up.

The bottle was as dusty dry as the dirt in which it had laid for untold days. Weeks, months, probably. He emptied out the dirt inside and looked over at the Greene sisters, as if expecting them to be able to tell him what to do now.

"Hold onto it," Beth said gently. "You might be able to use it later. Find a puddle or maybe it'll rain."

Holding the bottle, he turned to stare at the horizon. There were no roads out here. There should have been, but there weren't. Godforsaken empty nothing. Where was he? Where was the highway, the wash, the houses? Tyreese had been fucking dreaming; there was nothing out here. Nothing but dirt and rocks and mesquite and tumbleweed. Bugs and buzzards. Maybe a few mummified walkers if he looked hard enough.

There was an outcropping to the right. Maybe a few miles. A cliff facing, maybe shelter. It was going to be pretty toasty out here today. He could already feel it.

"Let's go over there," Maggie said, walking up next to him. "I'm getting a sun rash just standing out here. Aren't you? Let's get some shade, rest a while. What d'ya say?"

Daryl eyed her for a moment before giving a sharp nod. "Alright."

Maggie stayed on his right when he started to walk again. Beth joined them on his left. Bookends. Daryl almost smiled as he shaded his eyes.

x X x

It was much too far. He was never going to make it. Sorry, cowgirl, gonna have to sit down. He just needed a little break. And, really, this would be so much easier if one of the sisters had some water on them. They sure as hell didn't look thirsty to him, which meant that they must have had water somewhere. They weren't fucking sharing with him, though. Leaving him out of their little water-filled secret. Stuck-up bitches. Sneaky bitches, too.

"The farmer's daughter ain't here," someone said directly behind him.

Daryl wheeled around and stared. Merle was grinning as he shook his head slowly.

"Poor lil' brother," he said with a mock sympathy. "Your group really did abandon you, after all. Just like I said they would. It sucks when people abandon you, don't it? Just when you need them most. Trusted _them_ the most. Where were they, eh?"

Daryl took a step away from him before he even realized what he was doing. He tried to adopt a believable snarl. "Where are they? What did ya do this time, Merle? Drag 'em off to some other sicko for own damn fucked up reasons? Huh!? If ya've hurt them or gotten them hurt—"

"You'll what?" Merle challenged a smirk on his lips. He held a bottle of beer in his hand. There were droplets of condensation sliding down the sides of the glass, plopping on the ground around his feet. He could hear the fizz of the recently opened brew from here. Merle took a sip from the bottle and sighed happily. "You couldn't hurt a damn fly, baby brother," he said easily. "Ya seen yourself lately? You ain't lookin' too good."

"You're not here," Daryl whispered, almost desperately as he took another step back. "You're not. You're dead."

Merle Dixon cocked his head to one side as his mouth moved up into a smirk. "I'm always gonna be with you, Darlina. The way you remember me. All the good memories are shit when you have a fucked up load of verbal abuse to sort through. This is how you'll always get me, and I'll always be there. Don't ya realize that?"

"No," Daryl protested uselessly. "I don't wanna see this shit… Go 'way. Leave me alone!"

Merle just laughed. "Go 'head, lil' brother. Sit down. You ain't gonna make it there anyway. What's the point in trying? Might as well give up like the lil' bitch you are."

Daryl turned away, and before he even realized what he was doing, his hands had found his ears, clamping down over them hard, trying to block out the words as if he were a child. "Shut up. Go 'way."

He could still hear him, like Merle was inside his eardrums, inside his head. "You're gonna die out here, Darlina. All alone. Just like I did, 'cause you weren't there. Ya chose that damn group over _me_, and now they've left ya for dead like the useless pussy you are. I told ya… I told ya, ain't nobody gonna care 'bout you 'cept me, but you didn't listen. Now, look where it's got ya. Exactly what you deserve. All alone. Miserable. A three-year-old buzzard is gonna be eatin' your liver by tonight, and you'll be eatin' his tomorrow mornin'. Then you're gonna drag your mummified corpse all the way 'cross this damn desert to find that lil' group of yours. And then you'll eat them too. Rick. Carol. They all gonna be dead by your peelin', decayin' hands. You'll rip off their faces and lick your chops when you're done. They'll be so goddamned disfigured by the time you're done that they'll have to identify them usin' their damn teeth. Except they won't, because nobody will ever find them. They'll all be dead. Carl, Judith… They gonna die 'cause of you, boy. And the only reason any damn soul will remember Daryl Dixon is 'cause of the fuckin' misery you caused every damn one of them. And finally, you'll cease to exist, not even a blip on anybody's damn radar… and you'll rot away to nothin'. Bones to dust. And just like that, you'll be gone. Forgotten. Nothin'."

His hands were pressed to his ears so hard that it felt like his skull was caught in a vice grip. "Shut up!" he screamed. "You're not here! Shut up, shut up, SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

When he next opened his eyes, Merle was gone. He really was alone.

"I ain't dyin' yet," Daryl whispered hoarsely. "Not yet."

After another moment, he gathered himself up and walked on.

x X x

The buzzard continued to shadow him. It never landed. At least, not where Daryl could see it, but its shadow kept flitting overhead. And then that one was joined by a few more. They were waiting, patient as the desert itself, patient as death. They were waiting for him to fall, waiting for him to stop moving, stop fighting, stop living. Then they would swoop down and have lunch with Daryl as they munched _on_ Daryl.

He was in trouble. It was painfully obvious at this point. He could feel it, even if he couldn't see himself. Walking was a damn chore now. He was still doing it, but he was not sure how much longer he could keep on. His legs felt incredibly heavy. His muscles burned relentlessly, worse than he'd ever felt before. It felt like he had damn cinder blocks strapped to his ankles.

But there was other stuff, too. Stuff like the way his eyes weren't working all that well anymore. They were too dry; he couldn't focus. Stuff like the way it was getting harder to breathe. It wasn't like asthma; no, this was just plain hard to get his lungs to keep going in and out. Out and in. The air was so hot. It was like trying to breathe with your head stuck in a goddamn 400-degree oven. His lungs didn't want that kind of air. They didn't like it.

His lip was bleeding. The blood actually tasted kind of good in his mouth. Wet. It was a bit too thick to be mistaken for the real thing, but it was so wonderfully wet. He sucked on it. He was practically a walker already, craving the sweetest morsel of anything that could quench his thirst. The crack on his lip widened, and it started to sting. But the pain wasn't bad, not compared to everything else his body was going through. He swallowed a mouthful of blood and sucked out more.

The little cliff was closer than before. He could make it. He would. There would be shade there and maybe a tree. That could mean water. Underground, probably, but he could still dig. If he had to. Sure.

A few minutes later, he had to pee and into the bottle the little droplets went. His urine was the color of the strong tea, the way his Uncle Jess used to make it. A handful of teabags, boiling water, four scoops of sugar, all in a plastic milk jug. He made the best damn tea. He would even give Daryl a few sprinkles of whisky, sometimes even using the good stuff after he had a particularly bad day with the old man. Uncle Jess never interfered, but he knew. Uncle Jess made serious tea with ice and a squeeze of lemon, best damn thing on a hot Georgian afternoon.

He tried not to think about it when he drinks. It didn't really matter. Piss, blood, whatever. It was liquid. It tasted horrible. His tea fantasy disappeared in an instant. It was salty and acrid and stunk something awful. But it was wet. Oh, thank you, JC, it was wet.

There wasn't much of it. When it was gone, he threw the bottle to the side. He had a feeling that he wouldn't need it again. His days of writing his name in the snow that never fucking fell were over.

His stomach gurgled unpleasantly. He licked a thick warm bubble of blood from his lip and squinted at the cliff in the distance.

x X x

"He must have stayed here at some point."

Rick gazed down at the pretty put together fire pit. He knew the likelihood that Daryl had wasted valuable nighttime hours was probably low unless he had no other choice, so the fire hadn't been for warmth. It had been for them. He wanted to be found. His stomach lurched with guilt that he couldn't even tie to anything. He wasn't sure what he could have done differently, but he was responsible for Daryl's safety. He had been responsible for Tyreese's too. And here they were now.

"I think you're right," he said dully, squatting down next to it.

An indent in the dirt was just a few feet away, practically hiding under the rock. Rick could almost make out Daryl's body shape as he hid from the sun in the only shade he could find. Daryl was a smart man, but the desert was definitely not his element.

Michonne pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Question is… where is Daryl?"

Rick's knees popped as he stood upright again. He was getting old. "I don't know."

He was not the tracker of the group. That was Daryl's damn job. But who the hell was supposed to do the tracking when he was the man they were looking for? He ran a tired hand down his face. For all he knew, there was nothing left to find except a walker. Maybe he was wasting everybody's time. Maybe he was chasing another ghost. But, no, Rick knew that if it had been him, Daryl would make sure not to leave him as one of _them_. He would make sure he didn't suffer that fate. He had to do the same in return.

"See any more buzzards?"

Rick shot Michonne a wounded look, but the pinched look of despair on her face and the dread in her eyes stifled whatever rebuke he had been about to make. Michonne was just seeing the situation for what it was. It was bad. God, it was worse than Rick would have ever imagined.

"How good are your skills in tracking?" Rick asked.

She gave him a level look. "Not good enough." She looked away, facing vaguely east. "We're going to need a dog."

Rick gave her a confused look. "Karen's dog? He's not trained to track."

"We're going to need something," Michonne pointed out. "Our resources are limited, Rick. We don't have a lot of time. If we don't find him fast, it's not going to be just him that we need to worry about…"

Rick glanced around to see everybody else looking quite exhausted, already drained by the desert heat. Maggie and Glenn were taking turns dabbing each other with wet cloths. Carl was fanning himself with his hat. Sasha's tears had long since dried up, and she was using the rag that had been used to wipe her face of her sorrow to now wipe her forehead of her sweat. And Carol… Carol was just staring off into the horizon, barely fazed by the sun at all, her thoughts a million miles away.

He thought of Tyreese, the mummified walker that had been worked on quickly by the overbearing sun to look like he had been dead a lot longer than 24 hours. He tried to imagine Daryl's face where Tyreese's had been. He tried to picture him alive.

He couldn't.

"Okay," he whispered.

Michonne lightly touched his shoulder causing him to flinch. She didn't remove her hand. "We'll find him," Michonne stated softly. "We will."

Rick nodded. "I know." He swallowed. "I just hope we're in time."

"Me too."


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer**: I do not own The Walking Dead. But I really hope one day I work for them!

**Author's Note**: Here's chapter 4! I'm a few hours later than my other chapters have been getting uploaded, but hopefully that's not too big of an inconvenience. I had a mention about the language in the story, and I feel the need to note that I don't use this language lightly. I also write in the _Digimon_ fandom (go on, you can laugh! It's okay. I understand), and I feel extremely awkward using any kind of cursing in those stories because they come from a children's source material. This? This is definitely not a children's source material, and I am not using any language that feels OOC for the story. I do not use foul language on a whim; I just feel that this story kind of asks for it, so I didn't deny my gut feeling and went for it. I'm sorry if you find it offensive, but like I said back in chapter 2, it's not exactly going to get better!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Four**

The cliff wasn't very far away when what was in his stomach decided to make an encore appearance. Daryl had been nauseated for a while now – longer than he realized – but this was the ultimate indignity. Piling on insult over injury. He had to force himself to get this shit, and now his body wanted to throw it away again? What the FUCK.

What he threw up wasn't much, way less than what he figured was making him feel so goddamn sick. And he just kept doing it, kneeling on the ground like he was praising the motherfucking desert gods, making his mid-afternoon prayers as he dry-gagged all over the sand. Over and over again, until he was crying out in pain between spasms. It hurt like a bitch. His belly was killing him, clenching and twisting so hard on nothing.

Finally, it stopped, just enough to let him sit back on his tailbone. His forehead rested forward against his knees, his eyes trained on the ground. Blood was dripping and pooling in his lap. He figured it was probably his ragged lips, but when he reached up without much interest to double-check, he discovered it was his nose. It was so dried out that the membranes were cracking, just like his lips. He tasted the blood in the back of his throat and that made him heave a few more times again.

He almost wanted to cry when he was done, but there were no tears left to cry anymore. Good Lord, he was so lonely. He was going to die out here. No one to hold his hand or slip him a big bottle of water. No one to put their arm around him and tell him to rest, relax, it would all be okay. Not that he would let most people do that, but he would let Carol. And that sounded exactly like something she would do; she would tell him it was all going to be okay. But she wasn't here, and nothing was going to be okay. Nothing here, anyway. He couldn't do anything anymore. He was done.

He hoped Rick would look out for her. He wished Tyreese hadn't had died. At least, then, he would have been there to offer her some comfort. He would be able to love her in a way that Daryl was pretty sure he would never be able to. But he did. And he would never be able to tell her. Not now. Not ever.

"Daryl, c'mon, check it out!" Carl grinned down at him. He was holding Daryl's old crossbow in his hands, the one he had been given to practice with. It was almost as big as him and seemed to swallow him whole. It looked awkward in his hands, like it didn't quite fit there, but that didn't wipe the grin off of the teenager's face. "I've been practicing. You've gotta see."

"Stick to your pistol, son," Daryl tried to say. His tongue lied motionless in his mouth, numb, as if he had just gotten a monster shot of Novocain at the dentist's office. He shook his head as his eyes slid shut.

"Daryl, come _on_! I've been practicing, and I've gotten pretty damn good. The silencer is nice and all, but bullets aren't retrievable. I can do this. Please? Will you just watch? I promise I won't mess up as badly as I did last time."

He wanted to point out that his last attempt hadn't actually been that bad. It wasn't like he had accidentally shot someone. But they never did find those three crossbow bolts, and he wasn't really looking forward to losing even more. Those things didn't exactly grow on trees. Well, they did, but he meant literally. Or figuratively. Whatever. But the kid had only recently started opening back up to Rick, so he was still starving for attention from the older males in the group besides his father. And whatever Daryl could do to help out Rick and Carl's relationship, he wanted to do. Because that was what you did for your family, and that was how he looked at Rick and Carl. Family. Better family than he'd ever had, that was for damn sure.

So, he stood up and wiped the blood off of his face the best he could before giving a curt nod. Carl gave him a grin before he aimed the crossbow off into the distance. He followed all of the basic steps of archery, listening to all of the tips that Daryl had given him over the past several months, before he finally pulled the trigger. The arrow sailed through the air like a thing of beauty. It soared pure and true, fast as a bolt of lightning. It arched into the air before it disappeared out of Daryl's line of sight.

"See? I told you!" Carl said, practically jumping where he stood. "I got the bull's eye and everything! Go look, Daryl! Go see for yourself! I bet you tomorrow night's dinner that I got the bull's eye."

He was too tired. It was way too far. He couldn't make it, but he would. Somehow, he would. Because he loved his family, even if it wasn't the one he was born into. It was the one he had chosen – or, more appropriately, it had chosen him, and he would do fucking anything for them. Even walk insane distances just so Carl could know if he had hit the bull's eye or not.

"Okay, Carl," he said in his garbled crispy-dry voice. "I'll go get it for ya. If it ain't a bull's eye, you owe me two nights worth of dinner."

"Deal."

Daryl smiled at the kid, who was still so young and had so much life to live and yet had grown up so damn much since the first time he had seen him in Atlanta, before he turned and chased after the elusive arrow.

x X x

"Beatle definitely has something," Karen shouted over her shoulder.

She was holding onto the overeager bloodhound's raggedy leash with all of her weight, making the collar strain against the dog's neck. Beth was standing in front of the dog, holding Daryl's poncho that now had a nice glob of dog slobber all over one side from where Beatle had gotten a little too enthusiastic in his sniffing. Rick was hesitant to trust an untrained sniffer hound, but he knew that they were running out of time and chances in finding Daryl alive. They didn't have a whole lot of choice.

"He's saying we go west-southwest," she pointed.

Rick gave a curt nod before turning to the group that was gathered to help the search. Only ten people and one dog, not nearly enough to try to search this vast desert. It was a massive area, and they were lacking the manpower for a serious Search and Rescue operation. But none of the elderly or younger children would have been able to withstand the heat, even with the water. Sasha was still a mess over her brother's death, and she was back with them, acting as an armed guard but more than likely taking this precious time to grieve.

"We stay in pairs, alright? Never get more than ten feet apart. Don't let this terrain fool you. I know it looks wide-open, but if you want shade – and hopefully that's what Daryl was looking for, he's smart, a survivor – you may cram yourself into a spot that you'd normally overlook." Rick had never been part of a Search and Rescue mission quite like this. The closest he had come was with Sophia and look how that ended. He tried not to let his uncertainty show. "So, don't overlook anything. I mean it. We're only going to get one shot at looking over this area… He's been out here for almost 36 hours already. In all likelihood, he's got no supplies, no water, no nothing. We gotta get to him soon. All right?"

Everybody was standing around him, listening to his speech. Their faces were tight with anxiety, brows creased with determination. They didn't want to leave this desert empty-handed. They had already lost one man; they didn't want to lose another. But Rick had a totally different reason to be determined. He was starting to believe that Daryl wouldn't be walking out of here, but alive or not, he was going to find him, set him right. The man would do the same for him.

Next to him, Carol's expression was hard to read behind a pair of expensive sunglasses that she had looted on one of their runs. She and Beth had returned from dropping Sasha off with sunscreen for all, and there was a dab of it spread across her nose. She wisely wore long sleeves despite the heat, and she was exuding a calm, implacable, steady as a proverbial rock attitude. No one, except her surrounding family, would have been able to guess that she had been weeping almost uncontrollably an hour ago. She had been standing over the smoldering fire pit of Daryl's last known location, eyes red and raw, and her sunglasses dangling from her fingers.

She was not crying now. Neither were Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Michonne, and Carl. Beth looked like she wanted to, but she wouldn't let herself. Her pale face gleamed in the sunlight, young and scared and wary.

It was past high noon and blistering hot. It had to be 120, at least. Nothing moved in the heat but the loyal-to-a-fault humans. Daryl had to be holed up someplace. It was the only answer Rick's brain would even tolerate, much less accept. The alternative kept trying to rear its ugly head in the shape of a decaying, shriveled walker hand, but he wouldn't let it. He had to hold onto that little piece of hope.

At the time that Daryl's family, not by blood but through the bonds forged by the world ending, was gathering together to start their trek through the dry hardpan of the desert, Daryl was not, in fact, holed up. He was walking toward that elusive cliff, his gait looking distinctly like a guy who'd had about a dozen over the legal limit. He was reeling, lurching, staggering with every step. But he was moving forward. He was whispering to himself. The words weren't possible to understand, even if Rick had been next to him. Daryl wasn't really even aware that he was talking. But in his mind, the words were echoing over and over again.

"Just a few more feet… C'mon, just a few more… Fuckin' arrow, where are ya…?"

The group turned and faced southwest, and Daryl walked past a mummified walker before retching just a few feet away. He gathered himself back up to continue along his path and whispered, "I see ya… fuckin' prickish arrow… Few more feet…"

x X x

Hershel shadowed everybody in the Dodge Ram truck on one side, and Beth bookended the group in the Hyundai Tucson. Both cars were stocked full of all of the water that they could find and other supplies. Hell, they had even managed to find a few handheld fans where the batteries weren't quite dead yet. A human body lost about a quart of water an hour if the temperature was around 100 degrees. It was definitely above that. Most of the group was starting to already look quite wilted. But looking at night, while cooler, wouldn't be worth it. There were too many chances of overlooking possibilities.

Daryl didn't have that long anyway.

A familiar sense of calm had settled over Rick as he walked, head swinging from side to side as he inspected the ground. He was trying to use some of the skills that Daryl had taught him, trying to track his movements, but the desert wind had come through and swept every little sign of it away. Well, not every little sign. Every so often he would see a broken twig, a crushed bit of tumbleweed, an overturned rock – it all gave him hope. He knew that if they were still searching by nightfall, they would have to give up and move on. He knew that if they didn't find Daryl before the sun vanished beyond the horizon, his walker self may have marched itself into Canada long before they ever got close to where he had spent his last moments.

They had to find Daryl now, in the next several hours.

"Doesn't seem like so long." It was Maggie talking from somewhere to Rick's right. She wasn't complaining, just making an observation as she stared out across the vast desert. "He'll be okay, won't he?"

It was Glenn who answered her. He didn't sound very young and instead brutally frank. "Under normal conditions, sure. It can take up to two weeks to die of dehydration. But in the desert? Only takes a day or two."

Maggie didn't reply. At least, not loud enough for Rick to overhear.

At his side, Carl sighed tiredly and took a drink from his water. "How far could he have gone?" he asked him. His voice was low, trying to make sure it didn't carry. "It can't have been that far, can it?"

Rick decided to just be honest with him. "Daryl is in excellent physical shape. With no supplies, no water – he still might have gone further than you think." He pulled out his own water bottle and took a swig from it. "If he took shelter during the hottest parts of the day, moved during the night and early morning… We know he didn't stay in the first coolest place he could find and wait, so that could easily be twenty-five miles… thirty?"

"That far?" Carol on his other side was the one that asked the question. She had been eavesdropping on the conversation, though she did not look the least bit embarrassed at speaking aloud. Even behind her sunglasses, she looked sick at his answer. "Jesus, Rick… we won't get that far before nightfall."

"No," he agreed softly, "we won't."

She stopped so that she could turn to stare at him; on his other side, Carl also came to stop, curious. "We've got the direction. Why don't some of us take one of the vehicles and go on ahead?"

"Yeah, Dad," Carl said, catching onto the idea. "We'll cover more ground."

He met both of their gazes. "We could miss something along the way."

"Let Karen's damn dog loose then," Carol snapped. "He's freaking out anyway. He can smell him! We can keep up with him in the cars."

She was right. A part of him wanted to leap at it headfirst, no questions asked, but with the idea came a whole new set of problems. But it was faster. At this crawl, they were never going to find Daryl in time. And if they didn't, what was the point of it all? What was the point of the farm? The desert?

Rick nodded. "You're right. Give her the word."

Carl moved first, running across the sandy ground to the brunette woman to deliver the news.


	5. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer**: I do not own The Walking Dead, nor am I one of the Walking Dead. For if I were in the Walking Dead universe, I would be long dead and long gone.

**Author's Note**: Thank you everybody for the kind reviews! I love them all. As everybody else has noted, Daryl's not doing so "hot," which leads us to seeing a bit more of a vulnerable side to him. As his world starts to crumble around him, so do those walls, and I wanted to show a few peaks that the lil' boy that he used to be. So, I hope you enjoy the delirium as much I enjoyed writing it. But overall, I just hope you...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Five**

Up close, the cliff wasn't really much to look at. It was covered mostly with crumbling sandstone with a few tenacious mesquites grabbing with long rooty claws for purchase. Daryl's feet slipped on the scree, and his hands were already bleeding from so many stumbles as he barely caught himself in time before he slid all the way back down again. But there was a dark oval up ahead. He was pretty sure it was a cave. Well, probably not a true cave; it was more likely to be just some random open spot, but it was shelter. He focused on it with all of his remaining clarity.

It was getting dark outside. The sun would have told him it was only around four in the afternoon if his eyes could have focused that long, but all he knew was that it was starting to grow dim around him. He had to reach the cave-place soon. He knew that this was probably as far as he was going to get.

He kept remembering a dog that he used to pretend that he owned. He didn't own it, not really. His father would have never let him own a dog, but there had been a stray that used to sleep behind his old elementary school. She had wiry gray hair and droopy ears. He hadn't known that many names, but he called her Lady, which she answered to well enough. She would eat whatever scraps Daryl could smuggle out to her, and her tail would wag like the wind whenever she saw him. Around that time, she seemed to be the only damn living thing that was ever happy to see him.

Until one day, right around Daryl's twelfth birthday, he found her wedged in behind the dumpster. She growled at him when he reached for her, but there wasn't much spirit in it. He sat down and asked, "What's the matter, Lady? Somethin' wrong?" That was when he saw the membrane was up around her eyes. She looked sick. He sat all day with her, skipping school in favor of the dog's company, as he talked with her about everything that was on his mind. Every so often, he would pause to watch the way her tail would wag happily.

Pretty soon, it had started to get dark, so he had been forced to pick himself up and head home to his trailer. He didn't really think about her again until he had dragged himself to school the next morning. Even then, he had been more focused on trying to decide if he wanted to ditch school again or not when the dumpster had entered his sights. That was when he found her, stiff and dead, still lying behind the dumpster on top of somebody's lost sweater. Old age, maybe. He never found out what killed her.

But now, forcing his trembling legs to climb, his vision graying out, and his senses of taste and smell utterly gone, he realized he knew why Lady chose the quiet spot behind the dumpster for her death chamber. She hadn't been waiting for him, to see him one last time before she passed on. She had been motivated by the innate desire to crawl away and lie in a dark and peaceful place, lying on soft, familiar things as she slowly past on. He understood this now. Merle had understood it, too. Death was a private matter, ultimately. And when one's time had come, as he now knew in some bone-deep way that his had, it compelled him to do the same as Lady. He just wanted to find some out-of-the-way place where he could burrow in, hidden away from prying animal eyes and noses, at least until it was done.

And if he was lucky, the sun would bake his reanimated corpse before he ever clamped his jaws around any unsuspecting victim.

He clawed for the next purchase, and one of his fingernails peeled back slowly, exactly like a postage stamp, the self-sticking kind. It didn't really hurt, and it didn't really bleed much. He eyed the wound without much interest before going back to pushing himself forward. It wasn't too much further now. Then, he could lie down. There weren't any old sweaters around to make a nest out of out here, but that was okay. It would be enough to just crash for a while. He was so very, very tired.

x X x

Karen took Carol's idea and ran with it. A water bowl was gulfed down and then Beatle was reminded of Daryl's scent before he took off. Rick didn't like putting all of their faith into one untrained bloodhound, but he also knew that it the best shot that Daryl had. He had to take it. He had to have a little faith, as impossible as that was.

Rick had never worked with dogs before, but he had always figured that they were probably reliable. He sure as hell trusted the dog's nose more than his own, and he knew that dogs didn't have the _luxury_ of being able to second-guess themselves. They were always eager to work. But Beatle was running further and further into the desert, away from the streets and the last remnants of civilization, and it just made Rick cringe at the idea. Why would Daryl go this direction? He should have headed for the foothills in the northeast where there was shade even if no obvious water. At least he would have had a more protected environment. Beatle just whined with excitement as he pushed on, chasing some scent that they could not see.

Hershel's truck was stockpiled with more than just supplies for the pathetic Search and Rescue team they had here. He also had plenty of supplies that Glenn and Maggie had brought back from their last run including an IV, several bags of Ringer's lactate, electrolyte-replacing liquids, and some homemade Oral Rehydration Solution.

The sun was starting to set. Time was pressing. Rick felt it like a huge weight shoving him down, making his lungs tight and his ears ring. Forty-eight hours and Daryl's chances would be just about nil. Rick didn't need to know anything about the desert to know that. That was police recovery procedure. After the first 48, you started to look for a body, but they didn't have the manpower or time for that. They had until sundown before it would all be over with. Just a precious four, maybe five hours. That was all.

The difference between finding a friend and leaving another walker behind.

Beatle gave another sudden bark as he wriggled at the end of the leash held by Glenn, who was doing his best to keep up the running speed as he let the dog drag him along. He was red in the face already, but he was doing a much better job than Karen had been.

"We could just let him go, all of us ride in the truck," Carol said through little bursts of air. She was doing her best to keep up.

"We might miss something or lose sight of Beatle on accident." Rick met her eyes and saw his own worry reflected back.

"Running it is," she agreed, not arguing for the moment.

The dog uttered another strangled bark and nearly yanked Glenn to his knees at his sudden eagerness to move faster.

x X x

"This isn't so bad." Rick surveyed the little cave. "This ought to do just fine."

Daryl didn't nod. In the past hour, he had begun to feel very odd. He couldn't swallow for one thing. He never thought much about swallowing, but now that he could no longer do it, he wanted to all the damn time. Every so often, he would get the shakes. But it wasn't just him trembling, like from a cold; it was unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was more like a dog coming out of the water and shaking himself all over. When those happen, he had to just lie down, right where he was, and let them run their course. They fucking hurt.

The cave was tiny and littered with all kinds of shit. There were little animal skeletons everywhere, and when he sat down, his hand mashed down on a tiny skull like that of a bird or a rodent, and it exploded into powder under his fingertips. It was slightly cooler in here out of the sun and protected from the ever-present wind. It was much, much better.

Rick was standing outside the cave, which didn't make sense. It was a pretty damn good incline – Daryl would know, he just scaled the entire damn thing – and yet he looked like he was standing on level ground.

"C'mere and lay down. Just rest." Carol was sitting next to him, immaculate and fresh-looking in her cotton shirt and jeans. And his vest draped over her chest. She had only worn it once to tease him. She had asked if she had looked good in it. He had tried not to smile as he told her to give it back. He should have said yes. Carol patted her thigh gently. "That's all you need, Daryl. Just a little rest."

Daryl leaned over and pressed his hot cheek against her leg. She was right. It was much better now. She reached out and started to gently run her fingers through his hair in comforting little strokes.

"Pretty romantic," she teased, "wanna fool around?"

"Stop," he groaned.

Her smile softened as her fingers stilled in his hair. "Do you really want me to stop?"

He hesitated before he managed to whisper, "No."

Her fingers continued their soft, comforting combing, and she started to hum a tune that he couldn't identify. His stomach clenched, but after a long painful moment, it finally let go. It didn't hurt long, and Carol's humming cut through the worst of it.

He wondered if bats lived in ultra-tiny caves like this, and then he closed his eyes.

x X x

An hour after they set out, it was clear that Beatle definitely believed that Daryl was around here someplace. He had set a stiff pace, and much of the time, Carol was having a hard time keeping up. She would let the rest of the group go on ahead while she trot-walked behind. They had gone almost ten miles, and she had drunk three bottles of water. She still felt vaguely thirsty.

Though no master of direction, she was pretty sure that they had covered enough distance to cross state lines. They had barely seen any walkers out here, which should have been a relief in itself except that it was pretty easy to figure out why. They were all holed up, mummified, unable to even try to get out and look for a bite. It made her stomach twist with worry for Daryl. She was preparing herself for the worst – for the _inevitable_. She was trying to paint his face as a walker, just as her baby girl's innocent one had been twisted…

Unwilling tears sprung to her eyes again.

The Hyundai pulled up next to her. Karen sat in the driver's seat, giving Beth some running time while she took a breather in the car. Her window was rolled down as she looked over at Carol.

"Get in. Let's catch up with the others."

Carol let out a relieved breath as she instantly listened, jumping into the passenger seat. Karen shot her an uncertain look.

"Do you really think that he's been out here since yesterday?" she asked.

Carol swallowed back her worry. "Since yesterday morning or so."

"No water at all? Nothing?"

Carol shook her head.

"I'm sorry," Karen said, squinting against the slanting sun.

They drove away to follow the trail of the others. Carol swallowed back another wave of worry as she grabbed another water bottle and scanned the horizon for the dog leading the way.

x X x

He was burning up. His mother had passed out with a cigarette in her lap and instead of being down the street, Daryl was right there with her. Their little house was burning, being swallowed whole. Flames were licking at his arms, and he cried out, soundless over the roar of the fire.

"Shhh," someone breathed. He thought it might be his mother. He didn't want to open his eyes and see her burning before him. He didn't want to see her peeling flesh and blackened char for skin. "It's okay. It'll all be okay."

The cheap wallpaper on the bedroom wall started to crinkle, ripple, and evaporate into the smoke before being engulfed in the yellow flames.

x X x

"Beatle wants to go north here," Beth called over her shoulder. Her face was bright red with exertion from trying to keep up with the panting dog she was holding onto.

Glenn looked more exhausted than his sister-in-law to-be. Rick was actually a little worried about him. "Go sit in the truck," he told him, gently. "Catch your breath."

"So damn hot," Glenn said thickly. "Dunno how anyone could stand it."

"I know. Go."

Glenn went to the truck where Maggie was already waiting. Rick was tired enough and dry enough to follow them, but he couldn't. Not yet.

If they felt this way now with plenty of water, how did Daryl feel? Did Daryl feel anything anymore?

He jogged over the hard-packed ground and kept his eyes on the bloodhound.

x X x

"Stop your damn belly-achin'," Merle said in a surprisingly sympathetic voice. "I'll get ya a cold beer. That'll help."

"Merle, I feel like shit," Daryl tried to say, but his mouth didn't work anymore. Nothing seemed to work. All he could do was lie in bed and wish it would stop. Everything. Come to a fucking standstill.

His brother smelled of cheap beer and marijuana, but it was a strangely comforting combination to the younger Dixon. Merle kneeled down next to his side as he looked him over, his eyebrows knitted in uncharacteristic worry. "Just be still, lil' brother," he murmured. "You're gonna be just fine. Who did this to you? Was it Billy Akers? That asshole jump ya 'gain?"

_No, it was fuckin' Dad_, he thought, _but you already know that. Ya just don't wanna say that shit aloud._

"Don't worry 'bout a thing, baby bro'," he said, turning the worried crease into a smirk. He reached out and patted his cheek with a lot more force than necessary. It kind of hurt. "I'll kick his ass for ya. The bastard won't be messin' with ya ever again. Y'hear me?"

Even though he knew that Billy Akers would end up getting his ass kicked for something he didn't do, the protective tone in his brother's voice made him smile. His lips cracked back open from the movement and blood dribbled down his chin.

x X x

"Christ," Hershel breathed from his spot in the driver seat of the truck. "I bet he's holed up in that overhang ahead. How in the world did he get that far?"

Carol didn't know. The sun was edging lower in the sky, swooping down. She was exhausted, and the slope ahead looked treacherous. She was not completely sure that she could scale it. All of her limbs felt shaky from overexertion. She would at least need a breather. She chewed a stale piece of granola and chased it with spit-warm water.

Beatle uttered a sharp bark.

x X x

"Jesus fuckin' Christ! Just make it stop!" Daryl cried.

Carol paused in the middle of running her hands through her hair to stare down at him as she went stiff and cautious. "Hershel will be here soon," she whispered.

He gave a weary nod. After a moment, her combing continued along with her gentle hums that echoed off of the cavern walls.

x X x

They were all climbing together. Hershel alone remained at the bottom as he watched the group climb. They were each grabbing each other for handholds and groping for rock faces to latch onto. Skirts of dust and tiny cluttering rocks danced down the side of the slope.

Above, Beatle reached the little cave first. He gave a howl. It sounded like triumph, and Rick surged forward.

x X x

"He'll be here soon. You just gotta hold on, Daryl… Just hold on."

"I can't…"


	6. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer**: I do not own The Walking Dead. I am just one hell of a fan.

**Author's Note**: Well, here we are. One way or another, it all ends here. I told you all it wouldn't be very long! But I hope all of you enjoyed the ride while it lasted. This is the last chapter, and I have no plans to do a sequel. But I do hope you all are happy with the way it turned out. I think I am! I may do more Walking Dead fanfiction in the future, even though stories without a ton of romance don't seem to do so well. I still found this to be an awful lot of fun to write. So, if friendship fics are up your alley, keep an eye out! You may see a thing or two. Hell, maybe you'll even see romance! Who knows? Either way, THANK YOU! And...

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Six**

"Holy shit."

It was a tiny cave, not even big enough to really warrant the name. It was just a shallow pocket cut into the cliff side, about six feet in a rough oval, barely tall enough to sit up inside. Rick couldn't believe what the hell he was staring at.

Behind him, Glenn's breathing was harsh and fast. "Is he in there?"

Rick stood as steadily as he could even as he felt his feet trying to slip treacherously out from underneath him. Carol squeezed inside the miniature cave as tears stung at her eyes. Just in front of her was a body, but it wasn't moving. Rick's throat tightened up as a hand went to settle on the butt of his Python, ready to act but hoping as hell he wouldn't have to.

Carol turned to look at Rick, revealing that a few of those tears that made their way down her dusty face. "Rick, I can't tell," she said helplessly. "I can't… oh my god."

"Beth!"

Beth didn't need to be told twice. She took the bag from Glenn's shoulder and put it on her own before pushing past Rick. Her tiny body managed to squeeze into the little cave, just enough so that she could start to hand Carol some of the supplies. Rick had to lean as far back as he could to give the two women the room they needed. His foot planted into the hillside to keep from simply riding all the way down the cliff side again. Beatle was whining and panting so loud that Rick wanted to hiss at him to shut the hell up.

"I can't find a pulse," Carol's voice wavered as she spoke. She was trying to be cool and professional, but her emotions were shining through with every sharp intake of breath. "But he's breathing…"

Rick's grip on his Python tightened. No pulse? Breathing? That didn't sound good.

Carol reached out with trembling fingers to lift back his eyelids. A calm steady blue iris stared back at her, and she pulled back with a relieved breath. "He's alive!"

Rick's knees wobbled. He was breathing; he was alive. Somehow, after all of this, Daryl was still alive. He wasn't sure if they could keep him that way, but it was the best damn news he had heard all day. Beth was quickly moving to pull out some of the stuff in the backpack including several bandanas and washrags along with a few water bottles. She started to soak each piece of cloth before handing it off to Carol who was wrapping the rags around Daryl's wrists, neck, collarbone, and his upper arms, just under his armpits. Her fingers lingered on his skin, as if needing the extra second to remind herself that he was real and he was _there_.

Rick turned away to look over his shoulder at the rest of the group. They were all along the slope, staring, hoping, waiting. Hershel stood at the bottom of it all, leaning heavily against the crutch as he used his free hand to shade his eyes as he looked up at them all.

"Is he there?" he called.

Rick nodded slowly.

"Is he alive?"

"Yes," Rick answered, and his voice echoed off of the rock walls.

Halfway down the slope, Maggie sat down hard. Michonne's teeth shined in a smile.

"It's not gonna be easy getting him out of here." Beth used one of the extra rags to dab at her face and neck as she rummaged through the pack of supplies. "I doubt he'll be able to walk. Maybe… maybe you and Glenn could manage to carry him down together?"

Rick looked back at the younger man, and Glenn nodded without hesitation. "Whatever it takes," he said easily.

"Can he swallow?" Beth asked as she started to pull out the different rehydration solutions that they had on hand.

Carol shook her head uncertainly. "I don't know. He doesn't seem conscious enough."

Beth nodded and moved to look back down the slope. "Daddy!" she called. "We're going to need the IV!"

Hershel nodded and limped back over to the truck.

The little alcove-cave smelled dusty and almost sweet. Carol was wedged into the side as she bent over, staring at Daryl. He was lying on his side, a rock digging into his right cheek. It didn't really look like Daryl, not how she had seen him only two days ago. Two days. His face was drawn skeletally tight, a mask pulled thin over bones. His closed eyes were sunk deep into the sockets, and blood had clotted around his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. His hand lied motionless on the dirt. When Carol grabbed it in her hand, it was cool and the flesh tented beneath the pressure of her fingertips. There was no capillary refill, no natural elasticity.

"Daryl, we're here," Carol whispered. "I'm so sorry it took us so long… but we found you. We did."

"…you did…"

The sudden voice, so quiet that Carol thought she might imagined it, was soft, raspy, almost impossible to understand. And yet Carol knew immediately what he had said. Her eyes locked onto his face to see his eyes half-lidded, still mostly out of it, but awake enough to see her face.

"…you found me…"

Other than his mouth, which barely moved at all, nothing else stirred, but it was enough. More tears sprung to Carol's eyes as she gazed down his face, but this time they were out of relief. She held his gaze as Beth pushed a bottle of ORS fluid into her hand, and she very gently dribbled a little sip of it into his mouth. It was painful, and it seemed to take everything he had in him, but he swallowed it down. It was enough to start to get some fluid into Daryl's dehydrated body.

Smile in place, Carol reached out to gently caress his scratchy cheek. It was fiery hot, horribly so. As if reading her mind, Beth handed her a thermometer.

"His temp's 104.3," Beth read off, her red face going pale. "Was he bit?"

"No," Carol said, without even giving him a thorough check over, "but we need to get him out of here."

Carol detached herself from Daryl as she crawled out of the little cave so that Rick and Glenn could better squeeze through. Beth didn't argue and simply followed.

x X x

It took nearly an hour for Rick and Glenn to be able to ease Daryl out of the cave and then down the slope. Back in the sunlight, everybody was able to get a good look at what his ordeal had done to him. It was hard to believe he could be alive. Nobody voiced how uncertain they were in Hershel's ability to _keep_ him alive, but they were all thinking it. It was hard to imagine that he would survive at all, even with Hershel doing everything that he could as they drove back to the little warehouse they had procured. Daryl could still very easily pass away.

Rick just kept his eyes on the road as he sped through the endless desert. He sat next to Carol, and he reached out to offer his hand to her. She took it with both of hers and squeezed it, hard. He glanced over at her to see lines had cut through the dust on her face revealing tracks of wetness.

"He's got to make it," she said in a parched, trembling voice. "After all this, he has to be okay."

Rick didn't say anything. He nodded and kept holding her hand. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he looked into the backseat where Daryl and Hershel were. Carol had said he had regained consciousness for a brief second in the cave, but Rick hadn't seen it, and he hadn't seen signs of it since. This was the ending stages of dehydration. He didn't know a lot, but he could tell that much just by looking at him. Daryl was burning with fever, the outward sign of a body whose inner thermostat no longer worked as it blazed out of control.

But he was alive. Perhaps only clinically, but that was enough for now.

The Hyundai ran over something that crunched beneath the tires, but nobody even noticed it. The Dodge Ram behind them buried it further into the sand. The plastic bottle that Daryl carried for several miles was now flattened and half embedded into the ground. It was wedged between two sharp rocks that the drivers were lucky didn't puncture their tires. A few critters would cautiously approach the bottle later that day, and eventually, a lone scorpion would make it its home.

The death of Tyreese and rescue of Daryl stalled the group for several days, but it was only two days later that another close call with the Governor and his men sent the group packing up and heading out. They headed north, hoping to leave the heat wave behind them, and when they drove headfirst into a rainstorm, they took it as a good sign to stop. Rick, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, and Carl cleared out a house that looked secure enough before everybody moved in. Within 10 minutes, every window was covered with duct tape and whatever they could find (sheets mostly).

The rain continued to fall, almost constantly, for the next three days as they settled into their new home. The storm was cool and welcome as it beat down on the house. Rick shook off some excess water drops as he came in from standing out on watch. Glenn shot him a smirk and put a finger to his lips before he passed him to take his place. Rick watched after him with a confused look.

Usually, Daryl was surrounded by just about everybody as he was forced to tolerate every single worried face as they watched over him. Too many of the old folks had tried to step in to try to baby him, so Sasha and Beth had eventually been put on duty to keep them occupied and keep them away from the irate redneck. Hershel had scarcely left his side as he monitored his condition constantly, trying to make sure that there weren't any lasting effects that he needed to keep an eye on. The second floor room, third door on the left, was a hive of worried faces as people filtered in and out.

But tonight, the second floor seemed to be particularly quiet as Rick headed up to check on his friend. He thought back to Glenn's face, and he kept his footfalls light as he approached the door. He barely poked his head around the doorframe, not wanting to disturb him if he was sleeping, but Daryl was wide awake. His only visitor was Carol, and a smile immediately tugged at the former deputy's lips.

Daryl no longer had the mummified mask that Rick had glimpsed in that tiny sour-smelling cave back in the desert. Traces still lingered. Daryl was still pinched-looking, and some of the skin along the back of his neck and arms was still peeling from the awful sunburn he had received. He tired easily, which was driving him fucking nuts, but a week of ORS therapy was doing him a world of good no matter how much his bitching said otherwise. Hershel said that he would allow him to get back into the swing of things with watch duty and even hunting in a few days. It was a fucking miracle, if those existed anymore.

At the moment, he was sitting up in the bed with Carol sitting just behind him. She was gently running some lotion they had found across Daryl's still blistered skin, her fingers brushing over the back of his neck, his arms, and his exposed back. His knees were up to his chest, the blanket held tightly in his fists like a child with his chin resting on the fabric. His eyes were shut, tightly so, as if he were trying to block out how exposed he felt at this moment with her, but every brush of her hand was loosening his facial muscles just a little bit until he was practically melting into her hands.

"Carl wants to give you back your crossbow," she announced suddenly.

"I ain't takin' it back."

Rick knew that he should leave. This was obviously a private moment meant for the two survivors only, and nobody else's prying eyes was supposed to witness this. But he found himself taking in Daryl's renewed health and sense of strength. Even his voice had gained back its natural gruffness as opposed to the scratchy quality that it had developed from drying out.

Carol smiled. "Glenn knew you'd say that… so he and Maggie have been looking for a replacement for you. There's a store here that apparently looks promising. They're thinking of going to clear it out tomorrow and take a look."

Daryl growled in response. His lips were still scabbed but they pursed with annoyance. "Don't need them doin' that shit. Ain't worth puttin' their lives in danger for. There is a shit ton more useful crap to be keepin' an eye out for than a crossbow for me."

"I'll tell them," she said, laughter in her voice as she tried not to laugh at him for his irritation drawn from overprotectiveness. "But you're just not Daryl Dixon without your crossbow."

He rolled his eyes, causing Rick to pull back out of fear of being seen. "Bullshit."

She let out a sad sigh and the mood in the room changed almost immediately. "I still don't know how you did it," she whispered. The lotion had long since been rubbed into his back, and now she was just mindlessly kneading the muscles in his shoulders. "All alone like that. I thought…"

Daryl turned slightly to look at her. "Didn't do it alone."

Rick felt about as confused as Carol looked.

"What?"

"Had some help."

Suddenly, Rick found himself concerned as he stared at the redneck through the crack in the door. The first few days, Daryl seemed to have been plagued with hallucinations as he muttered about things that didn't fully make sense. He thought they had moved past that stage, but he suddenly wasn't so sure. And yet, the look on Daryl's face was so calm, serene, and certain, that Rick found it hard to question his friend's sanity in those words at all.

"You did?" Carol whispered.

Daryl looked away, feeling suddenly uncertain as he picked at some loose string on the threaded blanket. "I mean, sure… yeah, I was alone… but ya'll… Merle… was like ya'll were all there with me kinda. Got me through it. Kept me goin'. Fucked up, I know."

"I would have been terrified," Carol whispered. Her hands fell off of his shoulders so that she could take his right hand into her own. He didn't pull away, and her grip only tightened as if she had no plans on letting go anytime soon. "Scared out of my mind."

"You and your nine lives woulda been fine," he said without any hint of hesitation. "You wouldn't have walked into the fuckin' unknown and gotten your ass lost."

"Right back at you, Nine Lives." She was teasing lightly, trying to pull him out of the dark place that his mind seemed intent on going. She leaned forward, and he turned his head to avoid her closeness. She was unperturbed and simply placed the kiss against his temple instead. "It wasn't your time to go."

He gave a dismissive snort. "More like I got lucky as hell."

"Maybe," she said, deciding not to argue with him. "Who did you see in the desert?"

"Everyone," Daryl replied.

His blue eyes suddenly met Rick's prying ones from the crack in the doorway, as if he had always known he was there. An understanding passed between the two men. In Daryl's eyes, Rick could see the endless vistas beyond the swirling dust and hiss of the wind. In Daryl's calm look, Rick saw something that he understood probably better than anyone else in their entire group ever would. He understood the wavering of sanity, the desire to hold onto the illusions for illusions sake, the need to not be alone and let those ghosts go. He recognized the bottomless abyss that they all stood in front of.

Or maybe Daryl was just tired and Rick was reading way too much in that gaze; maybe Daryl was just glad to have made it.

Rick knocked lightly on the door, deciding not to eavesdrop anymore, as he poked his head in. "How are you feeling?"

Daryl gave a curt nod. "Good. Did ya'll ever find Martinez and Shumpert?"

Rick gave an apologetic shake of his head. "No."

"My pocket," Daryl said suddenly, the gears in his head changing direction so fast that it left Rick confused. "Tyreese gave me somethin' – I gotta give it to Sasha."

"The necklace," Carol said softly. She squeezed his hand that she was still holding onto. "We found it."

"Gotta give it to her."

Rick raised a calming hand. "I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it."

Daryl sighed and leaned back into Carol's embrace without even realizing it. "Thank god."

The former cop watched the way Carol's thumb ran over the back of his palm, pulling on the skin ever so slightly before it would spring back into place, the way it should. The sign of good hydration again. "You need anything?"

Daryl shook his head. He was starting to look sleepy. "Nah. Just ready to get back to the swing of things."

"Soon," he promised before his lips spread into a smirk. "I'll leave you two alone now."

He grabbed the doorknob and slowly pulled the door shut, chuckling as he heard Daryl call after him: "Fuck off."

Inside the room, Carol was laughing slightly as Daryl glared at the door as if Rick were standing right there. She could see the exhaustion of his ordeal, of his day, shining in the lines around his eyes. She reached down and patted her lap lightly. "C'mon. Lay down."

He turned to look at her, and a strange look crossed his face as he saw what she was saying. She started to wonder if she should take it back when he finally started to shift down and gently laid his head against her thigh. She smiled and started to gently comb her fingers through his matted hair. Daryl let out a small content sigh as his eyes slid closed, and the exhaustion disappeared with the blue of his iris. Who did Daryl see out there in the desert? All of them? Her?

She started to hum absently.

"What is that?" His eyes were open again, staring at her, almost startled.

Her fingers pause in his hair. "What I was humming?"

He nodded.

"You don't know it?" she asked, surprised.

"I've heard it," he admitted. "Dunno what it is."

Carol smiled slightly as she went back to running her fingers through his hair. "I used to sing it Sophia when she would have trouble sleeping," she told him quietly.

Daryl didn't move to interrupt her or ask her to stop. He just reached out to put a gentle hand on her ankle next to him.

"_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. _

_You make me happy when skies are gray._

_You'll never know, dear, how much I love you._

_Please don't take my sunshine away…"_


End file.
